Action/reaction: Grades for Cal, Stanford and SJSU; Pac-12 POW ballot and more

Using an abbreviated format this week — three for the price of one! — because I’ve been busy with an NFL-related assignment for a few days (with the exception of coverage of the Stanford-San Jose State game) …

Action: Cal defeats Portland State 37-30.Reaction I: Five hundred and fifty-three yards for Portland State. 5-5-3.Reaction II: I’ll grant you 100x over that Cal needs a talent upgrade on defense and was missing four starters. And yet … 553 yards. When you place the performance in context of Louisiana Tech’s defensive no-show under Sonny Dykes … then the 553 moves to a slightly higher level on the worry meter.Reaction III: Give the Bears a C this week. The offense deserves a B and the defense gets a D. (Only one TD in the second half.) Don’t forget: Portland State has spent most of the past five seasons wallowing in the bottom half of the Big Sky. Imagine if the Bears had played a good FCS team.Reaction IV: Here come the Buckeyes, with or without quarterback Braxton Miller (knee/day-to-day). His availability Saturday afternoon won’t affect the outcome, only the margin of tOSU’s win. Look for the Bears to hold their own early, then weaken and fade.

Action: Stanford beats San Jose State 34-13.Reaction I: Could not have unfolded much better for the Cardinal. Tyler Gaffney ran well, Ty Montgomery and Devon Cajuste produced, and the defense held SJSU without a play (from scrimmage) longer than 18 yards.Reaction II: Give the Cardinal a B+ … Fairly sharp performance by first-game standards. I’m just not sure how good SJSU is.Reaction III: Not much more to say on Week 1. Assuming a victory over Army, which got thumped by Ball State, then the only issue for Stanford on Saturday is avoiding injuries against the cut-blocking Black Knights.

Action: San Jose State loses to Stanford 34-13.Reaction I: Both things are true: Stanford looked good, and SJSU looked, well, not so good. The Spartans tossed a bunch of unusual formations at the Cardinal but wasn’t all that creative with the actual plays. The decision to kick a field goal on fourth-and-three from the five was the wrong one — it was plenty clear by then (17-3) that field goals weren’t going to win the game. And it was a mismatch up front, which is to be expected … except that it wasn’t a mismatch last year.Reaction II: Give SJSU a C- … I expected more from them: More pop, more grit, more everything.Reaction III: A much-needed bye this week. The Spartans need to get healthy, and the new coaching staff needs to assess what it has, doesn’t have, can do and can’t do based on two games worth of evidence.

Action: The Pac-12 names Oregon TB De’Anthony Thomas, Washington State CB Damante Horton and Arizona K Jake Smith the players of the week for offense, defense and special teams.Reaction I: The conference has asked media members to vote for the POW awards (details are here). I’m not able to write a separate post on the issue but wanted to make sure by ballot was made available to be examined, laughed at, ignored or viewed as the epitome of insight (hahahaha):

oops… some of the game comments and observations of the previoius post got left off by mistake… (another concussive moment !) …begging y’alls pardon… i’ll fill in more as the season progresses…

Bootlegger

@seattlespartan: That SJSU had to pay $350K to get Sac State really says more about the undesirability of playing in San Jose than anything else. The fact is that the Stanford game was a prestige game for SJSU and insisting on a home-away series shows that ego has overtaken common sense. If Stanford is going to do a home-away series it has much better options than SJSU.

macbaldy

@Todd (#29), you evidently undervalue David Fales and Noel Grigsby and the other WRs. Stanford isn’t flashy and that works against the opposition, including Oregon. This year’s Stanford offense is better than last year, when Oregon couldn’t stop the Cardinal’s non-juggernaut offense. Last season, Hogan’s heroes won time of possession against Oregon by more than 15 minutes, more than a quarter! Oregon’s defense lost a ton, to graduation and the NFL, compared to Stanford defensive losses, hardly any. There’s lots of whistling past the graveyard and hyper-rationalization about Oregon’s loss, and lots of chest thumping, which sounds rather hollow.

SeattleSpartan

Bootlegger, try stepping into reality for just a moment and realize that teams actually get paid for coming in as the visiting team, hence SJSU getting $1.5 million to play at Auburn in each of the next two seasons. Stanford will pay UCD more next season for playing at Stanford than SJSU was paid this season. How is that in the best interests of SJSU?

Despite the fact that Stanford has had a run of success in football, do you seriously think an 8 PM Pacific time start on a Saturday night made any headlines in the east coast papers on Sunday morning this past weekend? Do you think Big 10, Big 12, SEC, or ACC country noted the significant prestige gained by Stanford or SJSU over the outcome of that game?

We’ll be much better off traveling to a venue that has prestige, has 90K in attendance, has a national following, and is able to pay a decent wage to a visiting team.In days gone by, this would be considered a bodybag game. But we believe we can play with Auburn. If Louisiana Monroe can go in and steal a win, if Utah State can come within a whisker of beating the Tigers, no reason SJSU shouldnot have similar ambitions, and we’ll be able to pay off our entrance fees into the MWC, with a little left over for the Building of the Dick Vermeil/Bill Walsh Center.

harold

Curiously, SeattleSpartan, I find myself in agreement with you: Beating San Jose State confers no prestige on Stanford at all. Plus, we have to listen to your seven fans stamping their little feet and screeching that you’re a real program, by golly, a real program!

The fact that you consider Auburn but not Stanford a “prestige” game shows what little capacity you have to make judgments about such things. Stanford has been to three BCS bowl games in the past three years; Auburn, to two in the past 25 years.

So run along. We get just as much credit for beating Sacramento State or Davis as we do San Jose State, and we don’t have to listen to all the whining.

Darius

@SeattleSpartan:

Calm down. As you’ve stated ad nauseum, SJSU will make out better not having to play the Walsh Legacy Game ever again. So just be happy for your team.

@Bootlegger:

Not really sure that the negotiations for home-away series is all that egotistical of the SJSU football program. It may be presumptuous, seeing as (i) they’re a non-AQ school, (ii) that’s had approximately two (2) winning season in the last 12 seasons, and (iii) they’ve been playing the series this way for a century! I do agree that some SJSU fans that have come on here recently appear to have come wearing the dunce caps usually reserved for the weenies and it’s mildly amusing, but I treat those much in the same way as I treat most of “the Fake ___” posts.

I personally think these kinds of request takes a little getting used to and SJSU especially should know that you can’t have a “take it or shove it” posture with Stanford. They’ll simply find a polite way to shove it all the way down your throat.

There’s room for compromise, but the factors are quite simple and plain:
(1) Stanford will likely not be in danger of needing quality wins under the College Football Playoffs system because they’ll always (for the relatively long-term) play UCLA, U$C, Oregon, UW, OSU, ND (add to that Northwestern, Rice, UVA and of the Service Academies, you’ll see they have a pretty full plate of some very solid teams to play).
(2) Stanford has enough home-away series with its other non-conference opponents, so it needs guaranteed home games to balance out its schedules.
(3) Having one FCS game on your schedule and with 11 AQ (10 BCS) games to balance it off will likely land your SOS in the top 30 every year. That would place Stanford in the top quartile. Until last year, having SJSU on the schedule actually hurt its SOS, so not sure what your argument is w/r/t the SOS debate. By no means can Stanford take the 2012 SJSU campaign as any indication of that program’s future and then decide to commit to a multi-year home-away series. But you get my point.

@Leslie:

I like the neutral site idea, but don’t think that the SJSU fan base (and for that matter the faux rivalry) is enough to entice the Niners or Stanford to commit to such a move.

Darius

@Bootlegger:

My apologies for not being clear, but you probably figured it out already; the balance of my last post was in response to SeattleSpartan and other SJSU fans who are protesting Stanford’s position. The only portion directed to you was the second paragraph.

NorCal Tree

RE The Spartans,
SS, The SJSU Stanford game has helped SJSU far more than Stanford. It was worked out through Bill Walsh and the AD’s when SJSU’s program was on the ropes and wa at risk of being terminated. Many here thought UCB should also have stepped up at that time to help the Spartans keep their program. Just like the UCD game, we didn’t need to play you.

SJSU is now in better position and can get good money (which it desperately needs), but so is Stanford (Top 5). You want a home and home but you don’t draw and there is very little upside for us. I think Leslie brings up an interesting solution in playing the game at the 49ers new stadium every other year. Personally, i won’t miss the game and I do think that it will be hard for SJSU to keep their program. Last year was the best year ever for the Spartans and I hope you capitalize on it. Good luck!

Spartan408

To all you Stanford fans I am so glad we dropped your sorry ,arrogant asses. We get nothing for playing your team. Even if we beat you people would just assume your back to the usual also ran PAC 12 team. You talk about attendance like that place is packed every weekend. You may claim it’s a sellout but the place is half empty unless your playing USC and there fans come up for the weekend.

Just wait until shaw leaves to USC or Texas maybe even the nfl

MostWanted

You just proved my point:

“Actually, we do know, MostWanted. We know that Stanford nearly always beats the crap out of San Jose State — our record against you is 52-14-1.”

60+ of those losses were played AT Stanford. It’s just ludicrous to think the game always has to be played at Stanford where they have the home field advantage year after year after year. But I guess we don’t have to worry about that anymore since Stanford refuses to give up the advantage.

SeattleSpartan

You’d think from reading the comments from the trees that they’d been dominating college football for decades upon decades. Without Jim Harbaugh’s brief stint at Stanford, you’d still be fighting for 5 wins per season, and in some cases 1-win. Even the legendary NFL Hall of Fame Coach, Bill Walsh could not maintain a winner at Stanford.

Get off your high horses. Your brief period of success will fade. You’ll be back down to 12,000 in ACTUAL attendance, with the exception of when USC rolls into town with their following. Enjoy it while you can. it won’t last. It never does.